Portable towers use masts to temporarily position lights, speakers, signs or the like in a raised position. For example, portable towers can be used to provide enhanced communication by extending the height of an antenna. Another common use of portable towers is to place a bank of lights in an elevated position for illumination of sporting and music events, road construction projects, emergency and disaster relief situations, carnivals, and most any other activity where portable lighting is needed.
Portable light towers employ a telescoping mast which extends upwardly from a base to support a bank of lights. As the area is typically devoid of electrical power, the portable light towers may be temporarily connected to a power source or have their own source of power, such as rechargeable batteries or an engine/generator power system. The towers can be mounted on trailers having an axle and wheels for ease in transporting. Prior art disclosures include portable lighting systems, exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,439,467; 3,495,364; 4,181,929; 5,806,963; 6,517,225; 6,805,462; 7,621,650; 8,303,143; and 8,439,534.
Light towers that do not include wheels need to be transported to remote locations by placement on a trailer. For instance, if a carnival needs five light towers, then either five trailers are needed, or a flatbed trailer must be used to carry multiple light towers. If the light towers include wheels, five vehicles and the associated personnel will be needed to transport the light towers. Placing multiple light tower enclosures on a single large flat bed trailer limits the amount of enclosures transported to the length and width of the flatbed.
Presently, conventional light towers lack compact features, which can affect shipping as well as storage. All known prior art light towers lack provisions for nesting and stacking. What is needed in the industry is a stackable enclosure with horizontally storable masts constructed and arranged to allow multiple enclosures to be stacked and nested on a flatbed, thereby providing benefits in both shipping and storage.